The Mural Arts Program tour season officially kicks off this month, with new tours including "Mural Arts Masterpieces" and "Mural Arts New Works," offering the opportunity to experience many of the over 3600 works of public art that make Philadelphia the "City of Murals." With trolley, walking, bicycle, and public transit tours, many begin at The Gallery Artist Studio to see the mural-making process first hand, 9th & Market Streets, Philadelphia.

Thomas Gibbons' 2004 Barrymore Award winner for Outstanding New Play "Permanent Collection" returns for InterAct Theatre Company's 25th Anniversary. Inspired by the Barnes Foundation, the drama explores the controversy provoked when a suburban museum's newly appointed executive director proposes to change the permanent collection, spurring questions of racial politics, journalistic integrity and the consumption of art. Directed by Seth Rozin, the production features returning cast members Frank X, Tim Moyer, Maureen Torsney-Weir and Tom McCarthy as well as Lynette Freeman and Karen Vicks, through Sunday, May 5, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia. "Permanent Collection" is the most successful production in InterAct Theatre's history.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) presents "Changing Scenes: Points of View in Contemporary Media Art," an exhibit that draws from a long history of independent film, video, and installation art practices from the 1970s to the present and includes numerous projects from artists Sadie Benning, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Ayoka Chenzira, Tony Cokes and Donald Trammel, VALIE EXPORT, Alexander Kluge, Pepon Osorio, Nam June Paik (with Charlotte Moorman), Adrian Piper, Jason Simon and Javier Tellez. Occupying the galleries of FWM with three installations, two videotapes, and a screening room in the New Temporary Contemporary that features a program of six single-channel videotapes, the works are presented in dialogue with each other to address different conceptual and stylistic issues, themes, and narratives, on display April 5, with a First Friday opening reception, 6pm-8pm, 1214 Arch Street, Philadelphia.

Pasión y Arte Flamenco and Fresh Blood, two all-female dance companies, perform "1096," Friday, April 5 and Saturday, April 6, 7:30pm and Sunday, April 7, 3pm. The collaboration touches on pivotal periods of women's history, beginning in 1096 at the birth of the first female gynecologist, Trotula of Salerno, the first women to publish on the female body and whose textbooks became a reference for many centuries of male doctors. The performance is part of the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, Fleisher Art Memorial, 719 Catharine Street, Philadelphia.

Biggs Museum of American Art hosts the First Friday event "Points of Juxtaposition," Friday, April 5, 5pm-7pm. Members of the regional artist critique group, Points of Juxtaposition, will display artwork within a gallery along the museum's timeline display of the fine and decorative arts. Each artist of this diverse group is representing their own contemporary African American male artistic perspective that will be contrasted against a backdrop of historically significant local fine and decorative arts. Artists include Carl Williams, Tony Burton, Seldon Dix, Ernie Satchell, Kennie Jones, Alex Gamble, and Michael Morris and features works in oil, watercolor, print, mixed media, photography, sculpture and ceramics, 406 Federal Street, Dover, DE. Bring the kids along for First Friday: Biggs Kids Day with Art and Music Expedition.

Philadelphia plays host to the Raga Samay Festival, the first 24-hour Hindustani (North Indian) classical concert in the Western Hemisphere in decades, Saturday and Sunday, April 6-7 at Drexel University's Main Auditorium. Ten soloists from India and the United States, including Snehasish Mozumder (pictured), perform fifteen consecutive concerts, each improvised within a raga, or melodic system, reserved for that time of day or night. Experience rare late-night and morning ragas at their traditional times with vocal performances accompanied by tabla and harmonium, solo instrumental performances, instrumental jugalbandi (duets) and other activities, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. Presented by Crossroads Music in collaboration with the Sangeet Society and the University of Pennsylvania South Asia Center.

The children of Wolf Performing Arts Center brings to life the voices, words and art of the murdered children of the Terezin Concentration Camp with "The Butterfly Project," Monday, April 8 and Tuesday, April 9, 7:30pm, featuring a performance of Celeste Raspanti's play "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" and 15,000 hand-made butterflies on display, honoring the memory of the children lost in the Holocaust and commemorating the camp's liberation on May 3, 1945, Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia. The performance is part of the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.

Villanova Theatre takes on Oscar Wilde's "Salomé," an adaptation of the biblical tale featuring aerial silk acrobatics à la Cirque du Soleil, live drumming by Josh Totora and Hebrew chanting, under the music direction of Cantor Harold Messinger of Temple Beth Am in Penn Valley, PA. The production, directed by Rev. David Cregan, is onstage April 9-21, Vasey Hall, Lancaster and Ithan Avenues, Villanova, PA. Salomé translator Joseph Donohue, Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst will speak following the April 18 performance.

Applied Mechanics' "Vainglorious: The Epic Feats of Notable Persons in Europe After the Revolution," depicts the great sweep of the Napoleonic Empire in the wake of the French Revolution with twenty-six performers that invite the audience to join in battles and rallies, April 9-13, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American Street, Philadelphia. The performance is part of the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.

It is May 10, 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and join President Grant for an interactive, child friendly and entertaining romp as he strives to solve a mystery of a slippery banana peel with "President Ulysses S. Grant and the Great Centennial Banana Mystery!," April 10 – 14, Innovation Studio at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia. The performance is part of the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.

On May 11th 1960, Searle received FDA approval to sell Envoid as a birth control pill. To remember that accomplishment, Penn Dixie Productions presents "Animal Animal Mammal Mine," a theater production created from extensive interviews with women who have inherited the technology of the 1960s, weaving characters together with dance, projections, and the hybrid sculptures of Martha Posner, April 10-20, Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill Street, Philadelphia. The performance is part of the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University hosts the Southeastern Pennsylvania Orchid Society International Orchid Show and Sale, Friday through Sunday, April 12-14. Celebrate the arrival of spring with exhibits of exotic and common varieties of orchids and shop vendors from Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brazil, Ecuador, and the United States. Free lectures and guided tours of the show and the Academy's world-renowned botanical collection are also offered, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia.

The College of New Jersey Art Gallery presents "Value Added: Artists' Perspectives on the Meaning of Worth," an exhibition of multi-media works and installations that examine alternative currencies and abstract expressions of self-worth. Question how monetary worth compares to other values, like the environment, in Christina Kelly's Pay Dirt, an ongoing project in which worm-composted currency feeds a garden of plants, or the American dream with Esperanza Mayobre's Legitimate Dust of Santa Esperanza, in which the artist sells "dust" from her own body as a religious devotional tool for illegal aliens, through April 18, Art and Interactive Multimedia Building, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, New Jersey.

Other events and listings throughout the region:

The Atlantic City Beer & Music Fest returns to the Atlantic City Convention Center for the 8th year on Friday, April 5, 7pm-11pm and Saturday, April 6, 12pm-10pm, with over 90 local and national breweries, culinary demonstrations, vendors, and more, 1 Convention Blvd, Atlantic City, NJ.

"Last Call at the Downbeat," an original show detailing jazz icon Dizzy Gillespie's famous stint at Philadelphia's Downbeat nightclub in November of 1942, opens in the Red Room of the Society Hill Playhouse April 5-13, written by JazzBridge co-founder Suzanne Cloud, music by Duane Eubanks, 507 South 8th Street, Philadelphia. The performance is part of the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.

The Philadelphia Invitational Furniture Show returns for its 19th year at the historic 23rd Street Armory, Saturday, April 6, 10am-7pm and Sunday, April 7, 10am-5pm. Bringing together patrons and artisans, the longest running exhibition of its kind features modern and traditional tables, chairs, beds, textiles, lighting and table top items, 22 South 23rd Street, Philadelphia.

The Battleship New jersey hosts the annual Vietnam War Living History Day, Saturday, April 6, 10am-2pm, with tours of the nation's most decorated and largest battleship, Vietnam War artifacts, re-enactors, veteran sessions on the hour in the officers wardroom, music, and more on the waterfront, Camden, NJ.

PIFA marks the centennial of the birth of Benjamin Britten in 1913, one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century with "A Boy Was Born: Britten Centennial," performed by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge England, Saturday, April 6, 3pm, Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center, with a program including the composer's "A Hymn to St. Cecilia" and "Rejoice in the Lamb," plus music by Gibbons, Purcell, Blow and Verdi.

ContempraDance Theatre performs an evening of mixed repertoire works including the pulsating "Whispering Echoes," the hilarious "Hangeraphobia," "My Baby Grand," and "TimeDance," dances through time from 1900s to the present, Saturday, April 6, 3pm, 7:30pm, and Sunday, April 7, 3pm, The Performance Garage, 1515 Brandywine Street, Philadelphia.

As part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts 2013, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia presents "Fall of the Berlin Wall," Sunday, April 7, 2:30pm. Commemorating the 1989 demolition that lead to Germany's reunification, the concert features vocals by soprano Katie Van Kooten, mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson, tenor Norman Reinhardt, bass-baritone Sam Handley, and the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. Maestro Ignat Solzhenitsyn conducts Klaus Meine's Wind of Change, Mikhail Dmitrievich Smirnov's Epitaph for the Victims of Communism, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, "Choral," Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Verizon Hall, 300 South Broad Street, Philadelphia.

2013 Shubin April Fest is April 8-28 with monologues, short story readings, poetry, magic, and much more, Shubin Theatre, 407 Bainbridge Street, Philadelphia.

Inis Nua Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Jared Michael Delaney's "The Hand of Gaul," Tuesday, April 9-28 at the Off-Broad Street Theater. Part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts 2013, the play returns to November 14, 2009 where three fiercely proud Irish fans decide to avenge their team after Ireland is knocked out of 2010 World Cup. Directed by Tom Reing and starring Adam Altman, Damon Bonetti, Jared Michael Delaney, and Harry Smith, First Baptist Church, 1636 Sansom Street, Philadelphia.

The 2nd XPN Music Film Festival, Philadelphia's first Festival solely dedicated to films about music, is April 11-14, featuring "rockumentaries," biopics about musicians and movies that are defined by their music soundtracks, spanning a variety of music genres, at various venues in University City.

Sarah Pike contributed reporting to this week's guide.

To submit an event to be considered for the Weekly Entertainment Guide email Robin Bloom at
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